I don’t talk much about television shows here, partly because there isn’t much horror on television. (I’ve found seasons of American Horror Story hit or miss—sometimes brilliant, sometimes unwatchable.)

Because it aired on STARZ, otherwise known as the network nobody watches, I missed the horror comedy series Shining Vale that ran a few years ago. However, it recently got moved to MAX and my wife and I watched the complete two seasons over the past couple of weeks. The verdict? Pretty damn good.

Courtney Cox plays a writer who moves with her husband (played by Greg Kinnear) and her two kids to a small Connecticut town that looks a lot like the set of Gilmour Girls. Their large creepy house may be haunted by a vivacious host in the form of Mira Sorvino, or it may be that Cox’s character is losing her mind. (You probably see why “Shining” is in the title.) Over the course of the series, additional familiar horror motifs appear – covens, satanists, creepy little girls…

I’m complained about mixing horror and comedy before—when it goes bad, it tends to really tank. But this show gets it about perfect. The scary stuff is scary and the jokes are funny. There’s definitely a kind of meta horror at work, and it makes sense that Cox, star of Scream, got the part.

Greg Kinnear as the husband is hilarious and both actors playing their kids are spot on. Really, all the casting is terrific.

The series got cancelled during season two and the finale is a little rushed and some plot threads hang, but it does the job.